Irish Pub

ARTICLES ABOUT IRISH PUB BY DATE - PAGE 3

The bar at 1439 S. Charles St. has gone by different names over the past couple of years. Until 2008, it was the Fort Charles Pub. Then, it was Taps. When they started renovating it in November, its new owners were going to call it Catherine's Pub. But a month later, they switched permanently to Delia Foley's. What kind of bar is it? What else could it be but an Irish pub? As a concept bar, it works. From its name to its decor, it plays the Irish pub role so well it practically belongs in a Jim Sheridan movie.

One of my long-standing life questions is, What makes an Irish Pub an Irish Pub? Is it dark, moody shadows peopled by whispering conspirators nursing black pints amid the rhythmic phthwacking of darts hitting corkboard? Or is it any old joint that serves shepherd pie, taps Guinness, and cranks out a Van Morrison number every half hour or so? Probably Irish pubness is like art: a whole lot easier to recognize than define. 12:30 p.m. We enter James Joyce after a 25-minute walk.

A Parkton man had an idea that even the casual beer drinker would appreciate: What if you could draw your own frothy pint at the local pub? Turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that someone across the Atlantic already had the same idea. So when Josh Goodman discovered he had a kindred entrepreneurial spirit in Ireland, he teamed with the small company there to introduce Americans to the Draft Master this year. The mobile table fitted with beer taps is designed to let bar-goers draw their own brews and can be found in establishments in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Las Vegas.

It's not unusual for baseball or football games to draw tens of thousands of eager fans. But soccer? Tomorrow, some 70,000 soccer fans will flood M&T Bank Stadium for the AC Milan-Chelsea match. The sold-out game promises to be one of the year's biggest events at the stadium - a huge statement for a sport that is usually overshadowed by football, baseball, swimming - and even golf. That means some Baltimore bars are going to be swamped with pre- and post-game revelers.

Americans don't give themselves enough credit for corned beef and cabbage. Too often, corned beef and cabbage is thought of as an Irish dish. It's actually an Irish-American hybrid: Cooked cabbage may have old-world roots, but the corned beef is a distinctly American addition. So is the tradition of eating corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day, according to Margaret M. Johnson, author of The Irish Pub Cookbook. "It's definitely an Irish-American dish, derived from the very Irish bacon and cabbage," Johnson said.

Fans of Salsa Grill (6644 Security Blvd., 410-265-5552) in Woodlawn will be glad to know that the Peruvian and regional American (both South and North American) restaurant is finally open for business again after it nearly burned down last May. The original reopening date was July, but that didn't happen. Part owner John Staley tells me that people didn't forget about the restaurant in the ensuing months. "Our old customers came back in droves, and we are doing great." The renovations were extensive, as the owners ended up tearing out almost everything and starting with bare block walls.

Sushi bars often open in the Baltimore area. Japanese restaurants that aren't steakhouses, not so much. Hence the interest in the new Aloha Tokyo (1120 Fort Ave., 410-685-0545) in Locust Point. It was scheduled to open this week where the French Quarter was. The owner is Sean Kim. (His neighbors, he says, Americanized his first name, Seon, and he likes it.) Kim is Korean-Japanese from Japan, and somehow Hawaii has gotten into the mix as well. He describes the cuisine as Asian, with yakitori (skewered chicken)

By Glenn C. Altschuler and Glenn C. Altschuler,Special to the Sun | July 22, 2007

Attendant Cruelties Nation and Nationalism in American History By Patrice Higonnet Other Press / 400 pages / $25.95 When savages - in the Philippines or the American West - perform acts of bloodthirsty brutality, Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed, whites should not shrink from responding in kind: To "withdraw from the contest for civilization" because of its "attendant cruelties is, in my opinion, utterly unworthy of a great people." The Puritans would have understood the Rough Rider's "dark and dangerous" passion, Patrice Higonnet insists, and George W. Bush is the latest - and worst - in a parade of presidents who have manipulated the "historically conditioned reflections" of nationalistic exclusion.

Quigley's Half Irish Pub has been a long time coming. Owner James Quigley bought the building on Portland Street five years ago and started rehabbing. Running a restaurant was always his goal, and he's still working on that. But the pub, which opened in March, is well on its way to becoming an elegant addition to Ridgely's Delight. At first, Quigley's looked like it was trying to be another pregame watering hole. Quigley wrapped tacky beer-sponsored banners around the building and hung dozens of small Red Stripe signs inside.

It's St. Patrick's Day, and you're thinking of putting down the remote, changing out of your velour sweats and popping into an Irish pub for a pint of Guinness, some corned beef and cabbage, and Irish music. The problem is, you're sort of a recluse (velour sweats?) and don't really know where to go to enjoy the day. So to help, a couple of Sun reporters set out recently on a quest to visit a number of Irish bars in the area, sample the food, drink and conviviality, and write down their impressions.